Maria’s a doer, too – from the Kennedy/Shriver clan – has been all her life. Remember she also came out for Senator Obama along with Caroline and Teddy and Oprah in ’08! She’s a friend of the Obamas, big time. Her only lapse in judgment (and I don’t mean personally, I mean politically) was Arnold. She was a media personality, but very involved in women’s causes and causes for persons with disabilities, etc., which she has returned to It’s all good!

Rachel is killing it on her show tonight! She is showing EVIDENCE that Christie lied when he said he didn’t know Wildstein and had nothing to do with him during the closure, showing evidence that he DID know the mayor of Fort Lee……GO RACHEL!!!!!

Such a relief after all the emoprog outrage against the current Adminstration that marched lockstep with RWNJ libertarian narciscists. Infuriating that they did so without consideration of what American life would be like under #NoTermMitt’s puppet presidency.

Lifelong SoCalifornian, and there’s never been a year this dry. The drought years of the late 1980s don’t even come close — check out the blip of rainfall in CA at the far right of the chart in the second tweet.

If you look at %’s, except NM and OR, all the other states have hit double digits. Some of the nos. of deep red states are quite encouraging. I just hope they are good enough to swing the congress and the improve senate in 2014.

Does anybody know what options Harry Reid has now on the UI extension? He can’t just let this die, leaving 1.3 million people without an income. I’m sure this is going to be on the president’s agenda when he meets with Senate Dems tomorrow. Something, something has to break. Is it possible to find some money from other programs to keep people going for a while? I’m really frustrated by this. Millions of human beings, the national economy, our whole well being is daily trashed and undermined every day by the Republican saboteurs in Congress. And yet people will keep voting for them.

The bill’s supporters fell four votes short of the 60 they needed to end the Republican filibuster and allow a vote on the $6.4 billion bill to extend benefits by three months. In the end, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., changed his “yes” vote to a “no” — a procedural move that allows him to bring the bill up again if he can secure more GOP votes.

Chips I hope you don’t mind but would like to just let everyone know that the guy who runs this O’Care website (who appears to be the ONLY person in the US keeping track of Obamacare signups) has a donation page. It’s a lot of work so if you have a few pennies to throw his way you can do it on this link. http://acasignups.net/

I was home over the weekend, in Michigan, where my mom has home health aides helping her out. I get into discussions about the ACA with these folks. One was telling me how she didn’t like the job but she took it just for the health insurance. She would like to start her own business. I could rightly tell her that now, with the ACA, she can get insurance on her own and it will surely be more affordable than what she has been paying. Also, she has a history of cancer, and I told her now she doesn’t have to worry about pre-existing conditions preventing her from getting coverage. This kind of story must be true of so many people. It has not sunk in how far-reaching the impact of the ACA is.

On a less positive note, another aide was complaining to me. She never signed up for the insurance offered by her agency, now she has to. It costs her $100/month that she used to avoid paying, and says her budget is so tight that it’s murder to pay it. I feel bad for her, knowing that her salary is lousy, and it is a struggle to come up with that extra money. But I also know that people like her have been getting sick over the years, going to hospital ER’s and getting admitted and being treated and we all have subsidized that care through higher insurance premiums.

Another example: I have a young family member who probably will never be able to get a solid job with health insurance. His mom used to worry that he wouldn’t be able to get health insurance on his own. Now he can, thanks to Obama.